The Practice of Value

by Raz, Joseph; Korsgaard, Christine M.; Pippin, Robert; Williams, Bernard; Wallace, R. Jay

• ISBN13: 9780199261475
• ISBN10: 0199261474
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-04-10
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

The Practice of Value explores the nature of value and its relation to the social and historical conditions under which human agents live. At the core of the book are the Tanner Lectures delivered at Berkeley in 2001 by Joseph Raz, who has been one of the leading figures in moral and legal philosophy since the 1970's. Raz argues that values depend importantly on social practices, but that we can make sense of this dependence without falling back on cultural relativism. In response, three eminent philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, offer their own distinctive reflections on the connections between value and practice. The book begins with an introduction by Jay Wallace, setting the scene for what follows, and ends with a response from Raz to his commentators. The result is a fascinating debate, accessible to readers throughout and beyond philosophy, about the relations between human values and human life.

Author Biography

Joseph Raz is Professor of the Philosophy of Law at the University of Oxford; and Visiting Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia University, New York

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
The Practice of Value
The Thesis	p. 15
Social Dependence without Relativism	p. 15
Implications	p. 37
The Implications of Value Pluralism	p. 37
Change and Understanding	p. 47
Comments
The Dependence of Value on Humanity	p. 63
The Conditions of Value	p. 86
Relativism, History, and the Existence of Values	p. 106
Reply to Commentators
More on Explaining Value: Replies and Comparisons	p. 121
Index	p. 157
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